Search a city’s On the Cheap articles
otc_search_postsFind free and cheap things to do in a city by searching articles from the On the Cheap network. Filter by category, location, date, or full-text query, and optionally include expired deals.
Instructions
Search and filter one "on the Cheap" site's articles — free and cheap things to do in that city, plus deals, festivals, kids activities and local guides. Pass the site key for the city (see otc_list_sites); the national hub is valid here and carries country-wide deals. Filter by full-text query, category or location id (see otc_list_categories / otc_list_locations), and publication date range. Category and location ids are per-site — resolve them against the SAME site you are searching. Retired deals live in an "expired" category and are excluded by default; set include_expired to search them too. Returns slim summaries by default — use otc_get_post for an article's full text. Read-only.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| tag | No | Tag id | |
| page | No | 1-based page number | |
| site | Yes | Which "on the Cheap" city to read. Required — there is no default site. One of: charlotte, denver, atlanta, chicago, columbus, seattle, kansascity, miami, orlando, portland, richmond, southernmaine, triangle, national. Common aliases also work (milehigh, raleigh, rva, southflorida, kc, …). Use otc_list_sites for the full list with the area each one covers. | |
| after | No | Only posts published on or after this date | |
| query | No | Full-text search, e.g. "free museum day" | |
| before | No | Only posts published on or before this date | |
| compact | No | Return slim summaries instead of full records (default true) | |
| category | No | Category id from otc_list_categories, for this same site | |
| location | No | Location id from otc_list_locations, for this same site | |
| per_page | No | Results per page (max 100) | |
| include_expired | No | Include retired/expired deals (default false) |